ENGLISHAn innovative cancer control strategy, undergoing a 400-kilometer-long experiment, within the Spatial StationIt acts like a Troy horse. Enter tumor cells, tricking them. And, just within them, releases the drug to be able to destroy them selectively. By saving healthy body cells, thus avoiding the side effects of traditional chemotherapy. It is an innovative cancer control strategy, which is undergoing a 400-km-long experiment at the International Space Station (ISS).The experiment is called Efficacy and Metabolism of Azonafide Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADCs). Developed by US researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder and sponsored by NASA, it is an immunological test based on an anticancer drug conjugated with an antibody. The latter, on the one hand, binds the drug and on the other hand is able to specifically recognize and interact with the surface of the tumor cell, causing it to transfer the drug itself.Experimentation - explained the Italian Space Agency - started in April 2017, and will continue until September of the same year. The biologists have chosen the ISS as a laboratory because, under microgravity, cancerous cells grow like three-dimensional spheroidal structures that closely resemble the shape and behavior within the body. In this way, according to experts, tests can be conducted in optimum conditions, accelerating the development of targeted therapies for cancer patients."In the space, the risks of having false positive or false negative results fall considerably," explains Luis Zea, one of the team's US scientists. "We do not know if the ISS will metabolize the drug at the same rate in ground laboratories," concluded Dhaval Shah of the same research group. So we need to know which drugs can work in the long run."Da:http://www.meteoweb.eu/2017/06/stazione-spaziale-in-corso-un-test-su-farmaco-anticancro-colpisce-selettivamente-le-cellule-tumorali/918358/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter